


You Dried the Rain

by sifuamelia



Series: Rewrite the Stars [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Comfort, Flirting, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Injury Recovery, Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Lance (Voltron) Flirts, M/M, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Mild Language, One Shot, POV Keith (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 04, Slow Dancing, Worried Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifuamelia/pseuds/sifuamelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith hates the rain, but it brings Lance back into his life, and with Lance, everything's better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Dried the Rain

Keith hates the rain.

He'd realized it sometime after they'd arrived on this godforsaken planet at the edge of some random galaxy, where the heavy, soaking clouds roll off the nearby bay just as easily as the waves that lap its beaches. On their third day parked on a waterlogged island just out of reach of the breakers, he'd watched the sky grow dark as the afternoon progressed, the static-tinged air slowly but surely sucking the life from the vibrant colors of the sunlit ocean, and then finally—

“I haven't seen rain in awhile,” he'd confessed to Pidge, who was engrossed in her latest project of a mess of wires, squatting on the floor right next to the common room's couch like a tiny bird in the middle of a tangled technological nest. “It doesn’t rain in the desert.” He hadn't been particularly ashamed to admit it to her, his glaring ignorance of the world beyond the confines of his father's old shack in the middle of nowhere (although lately, he's been learning quite a bit — frequent intergalactic travel does that to you, whether you like it or not). But even though Pidge seems to know everything, all the time, she never makes him feel like the outsider that he knows himself to be.

“Mmmm,” she'd mumbled in response, twisting the ends of two wires together.

Keith had examined the sky, its wrung-out tragedy and the occasional spark of electricity that vanished as quickly as it came. “Is it always like this?”

“Rainstorms?” Pidge had looked up from the book and followed her friend’s gaze. “Well… no. There are different kinds. Sometimes, it just drizzles, little drops here and there.” She'd made the motion with her fingertips, lightly tapping Keith's knee. He'd tried to hide a sharp wince. There was a pretty hefty bruise on that one, a blotchy greenish-purple reminder that he'd almost crashed his fighter into a Galra battleship just a few days ago.

“And sometimes, it pours, like… like you’ve just dunked your head in a bath. Everything gets wet, all at once. And there isn’t always thunder and lightning, like today.”

“Oh.” He'd bitten his lip. “So… what do you do? When it rains?”

Pidge had shrugged, crossing another set of wires. “We stay inside, usually. Close all the windows. When we were younger, Matt and I would build blanket forts... That was always a good rainy day activity.” She'd let out a small chuckle. “But after we moved closer to the Garrison, for Dad and Matt, that kind of stuff didn't happen as often. You know how it goes out there. Truth be told, though... I don't think I miss it. The noise drives me crazy."

 _I think it drives me crazy, too,_  he'd thought, staring back out the castle's porthole.

 

* * *

 

About half a week later, Keith still hates the rain. He hates the sky, the clouds, the wet, the _everything_. He hates how he feels, because he feels exactly how everything looks beyond the windows of the castle ship — tired, heavy, and lifeless.

“Anybody home?” A soft knock at the door, and he jolts upward in his bed, having been halfway between wakefulness and sleep.

“…Yes?” He tries his hardest for confidence, but the exhaustion in his voice shows just as much as he doesn’t want it to. He hates that, too.

"It’s me,” the voice says, softly, because that’s the only way that anyone talks around him these days (save Coran, whose boisterous enthusiasm while in his presence seems a little forced anyway).

Keith sighs. He knows who it is, and he doesn’t want to see him, not now. But he’ll let him in anyway. He always does (no matter how hard he tries not to). But he doesn’t know why he keeps coming back. Things have always been at least a little tense between them, and at present, he doesn’t really have much to say. But while he'd been away, he'd missed him a surprisingly brutal amount. He'd missed his literal right-hand man. (Not that he’d ever admit it.)

The door slides open with a hiss, and there’s Lance McClain, with a brown take-out bag in his hands and a copy of a bona fide newspaper — oddly out of place within the sleek walls of the castle — underneath his elbow. He looks… messy. Not like his usual self, all carefully-tailored lines and sharp eyes that never seem to miss a beat. His hair is drenched, some of it plastered to his forehead, and all of his clothes are thoroughly rumpled.

He doesn’t wait for any kind of invitation this time. Instead, he gracelessly plunks himself down in the chair at the desk that he never uses and begins sorting through the paper bag, pulling out boxes and tubs of all shapes and sizes.

“Beef for me, pork for Hunk, I’ll save that… here’s the jasmine rice… and noodles for you!” Lance presents them to him so triumphantly that it makes Keith want to smile. But he doesn’t, and the other boy's face falls slightly. Not out of surprise, though, and that feeling that Keith gets, the feeling that the other boy had expected it… It makes his chest ache.

“I… thank you.” His voice is rusty and ugly from disuse, and he would've regretted saying anything at all, save for the stupid grin that suddenly spreads across Lance's painfully handsome face. _Ugh._ He'd rather get stuck inside an agitated Weblum for an entire _day_ than think about that kind of thing. “Where in the hell did you find Chinese food?”

Lance just shrugs, trying not to look too pleased (Keith can see right through it, though — after being stuck in the space with the guy for far too long, he knows him a _little_ too well at this point). “Space mall off the coast.”

Keith’s surprised by how genuinely interested he is by that. No matter how annoyed he always tries to make himself appear on the surface, he's always had a secret thing for the other boy's stories. They're usually pretty hard to believe, but the ones about his family always seem to set off some kind of barf-worthy flutter in Keith's chest. “ _Another_ space mall?”

“Yup. But this one isn't crawling with Unilu junkers and Galra mall cops. If we're going to be grounded for a few more days by these repairs, I figured I'd take advantage of the food court.”

Keith can’t help it; a smile slowly creeps across his face. It feels foreign, but nice. “Even in the absence of junkers and mall cops, I feel like you can't go anywhere without running into at least a _little_ bit of trouble.”

Lance looks taken aback, eyes blown wide, and this makes Keith's smile grow. “Hey! You doubt my stealthiness? Stealthiness is my middle name!”

“I'm pretty sure your middle name is something in Spanish.” Now he’s laughing. He doesn’t know why. Why is he laughing? _How_ is he laughing? Everything sucks. “And you claimed it was 'Sharpshooter' a few weeks ago.”

“That’s _Mr._  Sharpshooter to you,” Lance grumbles, and he eats a dumpling in one go.

 

* * *

 

It rains the next day, and the next, and the next. On that third day, Lance comes back to hang out with him, this time in the warmth of the kitchens. His oversized sweatshirt (the one that Keith secretly wants to steal and hoard like a dragon's treasure) is gone this time, and his t-shirt and jeans look a little worse for wear. He looks almost _too_ skinny, now, he thinks.

“How’re things?” he asks. He wants to be the one to start the conversation this time. Maybe it'll convey his worry, his growing anxiety, for the distressed state that Lance seems to be in. And he wants him to know that he appreciates his visits, because for some reason, they always seem to be too short, even when he stays for hours. He wants him to keep coming back.

“Eh,” the other boy mutters around a slurp of piping hot something, and the wetly gross sound draws Keith out of his reverie. He can see the steam coming off the bowl in lazy curls, spiraling into nothing. “It’s been busy. Lots of traffic overhead, but no sign of Zarkon, let alone the Galra. Some transmissions from Olia and the others, though.” He shakes his head, and a spray of rain droplets that had settled into his shaggy hair scatters across his lap. He needs a haircut. “And Lotor, he sometimes hangs around when he isn't off doing who the hell knows what. Fuck that guy, seriously. All he wants to do is get moving, but we still aren't done with the repairs.”

“I'll bet Allura doesn't like that.” Keith doesn't like it, either.

“Allura doesn't like  _anything_ ,” Lance emphasizes with a sigh. Something in Keith's chest clenches.

“Still rejecting your advances, huh?” He gets up to deposit his cereal bowl in the sink. The sound of clanging pots and pans somewhere in the distance alerts him that Hunk must be around, and leaving dirty dishes out might not be the best idea. He soaps up a sponge and swirls it through the remaining soggy dregs, conscious of Lance's eyes on his hunched-over back.

When he sits back down at the table, he can see the surprise in the other boy's eyes. “You’re walking again.”

He shrugs and takes a sip of tea. Ginger tea. He's the only one in the house that can stand it, and somehow, Lance had acquired some at the space mall. “Only short distances... My right leg still hurts like a bitch.”

Lance looks at him, dark eyes searching his face for an answer that Keith can’t even begin to imagine. “Better than nothing.”

He looks down at his sock feet. They haven’t seen his boots in what feels like ages. Even trying to slide them on is pure agony. “I guess so.”

 

* * *

 

The weekend brings even more rain. Coran cheerfully tells them that the weather should dry up within the week, and they'll be on their way shortly. He's itching to go, especially after he overhears Kolivan's voice on the radio. Shiro catches him listening in on Allura's report and shoos him away, telling him not to worry, just rest up.

He's sick of resting up. He wants to do something. He _needs_ to do something.

 

* * *

 

“What's up?” It's funny — there are moments when Lance's English catches on his Spanish. English is Keith's second language, too, and he wonders if that's the reason why he can so readily hear it in Lance's voice. He wonders if anyone else notices it. Maybe Shiro? But then another foolish thought creeps across his mind: _Maybe he only feels comfortable doing it around me._

“Reading,” he responds to the earlier question, but he doesn’t really mean it; more like staring at the same page, over and over again. He shows him the book’s cover anyway.

“ _Training Manual_ ,” he reads, slow but sure. Keith remembers his quiet confession to him, about how he'd learned to read a little too late because of the way that his brain processed letters. “Is this a Paladin thing?”

"No, it's a Marmora thing. Kolivan lent it to me. He thinks I should be exercising my mind if I can't exercise my body.”

“Huh." Lance's eyes narrow, but the expression's gone so quickly that Keith wonders if he's imagined it. "You enjoying it? A good replacement for leg day?”

He rolls his eyes, but considers it anyway. “Some of it.”

Lance laughs. “So, not a good replacement.”

“Nope,” he answers truthfully, and he’s shocked at how cheerful it sounds. But even in his weakened state, he can still find vestiges of energy fueled by his current hatred of being stuck.

“Read it to me,” Lance suddenly says. Or rather, commands.

Keith gives him a strange look. “Are you serious?” The other boy raises one sharp eyebrow. “Alright…"

He wonders if Lance notices that scooting closer to him on the common room couch is suddenly setting his face on fire, but he plows onward anyway. "The Marmora resistance effort was established approximately one thousand years after Zarkon's off-world reign began. His present rule could not be more unlike that of his time as emperor on Daibazaal. There, on the Galra home-world, he was known to be fair, just, and wise. But after his return from the void, nothing would ever be the same..."

It’s only a short time later that Lance has fallen asleep, his head having dropped into Keith's lap and the tips of his still-damp hair tickling an exposed strip of his stomach’s skin. He looks down at him, the wrinkle of the other boy's brow smoothed and his breathing easy. His outward haggardness gone, he seems much more relaxed than he has been for the past few days.

A tiny, albeit embarrassed, part of him wonders if he makes Lance feel better, somehow. More at ease. (Because the other boy certainly does that for Keith.)

 

* * *

 

He’s getting increasingly jumpy. It’s the weekend, and the rain still hasn’t left, and it seems to have seeped inside the very marrow of his bones.

“Whoa. You sound like my _abu_ ,” Lance comments when Keith twists in the dining chair, left then right, the vertebrae of his spine popping erratically. They’re eating lunch together again, and the radio is playing a lazy tune in the background, nearly swallowed by the clunking of a nearby stove.

He sticks out his tongue. “Don’t even go there. I have _loads_ of invalid guilt-tripping that I could dump on you right now.” Lance is the only one that Keith can say things like that around. Seeing Shiro's faced lined with worry, Hunk's sad puppy-dog eyes... It's just too hard. But Lance seems to get that this self-deprecating sense of humor that he's suddenly developed is one of the main sources of catharsis that he has for himself post near self-destruction.

Lance gives him a long look, that look of his that sends a strange shiver down Keith's spine. Then—

“Get up.”

“What?”

“Get _up_.”

“Are you serious?” he asks for the second time in twenty-four hours.

“As the plague,” Lance deadpans. “Let’s go, I haven’t got all day.”

“That’s a lie,” Keith replies, just as snarky. “You never do anything on Saturdays. You're the laziest person in the world on Saturdays.”

Lance smirks at him, his blue eyes flashing, and it's too damn sexy for him to handle with a straight face. _Fuck._ "Whatcha gonna do about it, _abuelita_? Stab me?”

He gets up, hoping that the other boy doesn't notice the hot flush rising in his cheeks. "Honestly? I'm considering it."

But Lance just ignores him. “Do some stretches. Loosen up. I know you can do it.”

“I…” He trails off, already feeling tired. He’s been standing for less than thirty seconds, and all he wants is to sit back down again. His knee is complaining, the deep bruises on his ribs protesting. “Lance—”

“Keith. For me. _Please_.”

It's enough. He does some stretches. Just the basics. He reaches for the pull in his gut, that incessant tugging that has been incessantly pushing at every button in his body. And for a moment, everything feels so, so _good_ —

He gasps, the energy suddenly escaping his body just as quickly as it had come, and he falls to the floor.

“KEITH!”

 

* * *

 

"I'm such an idiot," Lance says once Shiro leaves (but not without throwing him some serious shade over his shoulder). "I'm so, so sorry." His head drops into his hands, hiding his troubled face.

Keith takes some time to sit up on the couch, and when he finally makes it, heart pounding, he smiles ruefully. "Well, I guess there's a reason you're a self-proclaimed sharpshooter instead of a licensed physical therapist."

Lance finally looks up at him, eyes narrowing and brow furrowing. "You aren't supposed to be sitting up yet."

"What're you gonna do about it, Stealthiness? Force me back down?" He realizes, just a little too late, that that might not have been the best thing to say, because once again, his face is on fire. He proceeds to swing his legs over the side of the couch so that he can hide it, grunting when his feet touch the common room's cold, hard floor. "C'mon, then."

"Keith—"

He gives the other boy a pointed look. "I didn't finish my stretches."

"Are you serious?" This time, Lance is the one asking.

Keith continues staring at him.

"Shiro's gonna kill me," he mumbles.

Keith takes that as a "yes," and he begins the short journey toward the kitchen, toward the warmth that he needs within the seemingly perpetual draftiness of the endless castle. He can hear Lance's footsteps just behind him, steady and sure. Once inside, he twists his elbows above his head, letting it sit there for a few strained moments before heaving a deep breath and switching things up. He thinks that he's pretty successful at ignoring the holes the other boy's gaze is boring into the back of his neck.

Suddenly, he's throwing some punches, picturing Lotor's smarmy face on the receiving end. He moves onto Zarkon's demonic one, keeping his elbows up, and then knifelike Haggar, spinning around as he does so—

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down, _abuelita_." Lance's words jolt him out of his imaginary fight. He'd forgotten the other boy was even there. "Everything okay?"

"I... I'm kind of sick of the rain," he confesses after a stilted pause.

Lance blinks. Keith knows that he hadn't been expecting _that_. (He hadn't been expecting it, either.) "Uh... Okay. Why's that?"

"It's all... _this_." He gestures out the porthole, hands flopping listlessly. "Sometimes, it makes me want to scream," he admits, a little quieter.

Lance cocks his head, examining the soaked city in the distance. "Really." Keith just shrugs, even though he knows that the other boy isn't watching him.

"My mom used to take me and my sisters puddle-jumping," he offers suddenly. "Every time it rained, no matter what. She'd drop everything and take us outside for a stroll around the _barrio_. The rainwater would soak right through our boots and our socks, and my feet would be cold and clammy by the time we were through. But it's one of my best memories, jumping from puddle to puddle, my only care in the world being creating bigger splashes than my sisters'."

He wants Lance so badly to keep going. "What else did you do on rainy days? As a family?"

The other boy thinks for a moment. "Well, my grandma would turn on the radio—" He reaches out to the machine in the corner and does exactly that. "And play her favorite tunes. They're called _boleros_." Another pause. "She'd pull my grandpa along with her. They'd always end up dancing together. Not a real dance, but a slow one, just spinning together, really. My sisters and I used to watch them from behind the doorway. Just _abuelo_  turning her in circles, her head on his shoulder and his head atop hers." He stops, looking slightly embarrassed. "We would act all grossed out and stick out our tongues, but I think we all secretly enjoyed it. They looked so..." He trails off, still staring at something that Keith can't see. It must be far beyond the city, he thinks.

"Teach me that dance." He can't stop the words from slipping from his mouth. It leads to the longest silence yet, only punctured by the prattle of the rain and the lazy, slightly staticky, notes filtering from the radio's speakers.

"Keith—"

"Want me to pull the guilt-tripping technique back out?" He doesn't know where all of this boldness is suddenly coming from. "'Cause I'll do it—"

"Come here," Lance says suddenly, roughly. "Come here." His hands reach for Keith's shoulders, lingering just a little too long. He firmly pushes him into place, just in front of him. If Keith looked up, their noses could brush together, and the thought of that alone is enough to make his heart want to escape its bruised-up cage and never, _ever_ return.

"Stay just like that." They're basically chest to chest. He's horribly aware that he's wearing pajamas, and Lance's t-shirt is damp, damp, _damp_. "Now," he continues, and Keith hears his voice crack slightly. "Arms. Here."

Before Keith knows it, his hands are encircling the other boy's neck. Goddamn his sweaty palms. Goddamn his big mouth.  _Goddamn, Lance._

But then his hands are on Keith's hips, and he forgets how to breathe. A shock of nerves travels straight up his spine. He'd imagined how it would feel countless times, but he never could've dreamed up just how perfectly they fit together, how much electricity the other boy's touch elicits. How he smells like wind and salt, the scents mingling together perfectly. Imagining all of this, clinging to hopeless ideas, is nothing like the real deal right in front of him in the slightest. And it's probably going to drive him insane.

"So." Lance coughs. "So. We spin, kinda like this..." It's awkward and heavy at first. Keith can't look him in the eye, but staring at his chest (surprisingly defined for a guy so skinny) doesn't do him much good, either. And his feet are burning; he hasn't stood this much in days. He also doesn't remember why he thought that this would be a good idea.

Lance must've noticed Keith's grimace, because he asks, his tone slightly husky, "Are you okay?"

"Feet," he mumbles, wishing the other boy hadn't asked. "My feet, I... I think they've forgotten how they're supposed to work."

"Here, uh..." Another cough. "Put them on top of mine."

Keith finally looks up at him and meets Lance's eyes, deep like the depths of the ocean that they so resemble. "I..."

"Go ahead," the other boy says patiently. Keith licks his lips and does it.

"Now, uh... Do the head thing."

Lance doesn't even need to ask; he'd been waiting all along. They spin in circles in time with the lazy, staticky  _bolero_ — slightly wistful, but mostly hopeful — on a Saturday afternoon in a warmly-lit kitchen, Keith's feet atop Lance's, his head on his shoulder, and his head atop his.

 

* * *

 

Coran was right — he can't believe it. But it's Monday, and there's the sun, shining brilliantly through the castle's portholes and lighting the lingering puddles' reflections on fire.

"You must be happy," Lance comments over breakfast. "With the rain gone, and all that."

Keith shrugs, looking up at him as he takes a gulp of milk. "I don't know. It's funny, but... I don't think I mind it as much anymore." 

From Lance's stupid grin, Keith knows that he understands.

**Author's Note:**

> Season 5 can't come fast enough... The team needs to give Keith some extra big hugs when they all reunite, 'cause the end of 4 was an absolute doozy.


End file.
